Howard Stern and Social Criticism Research Paper

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Howard Stern and Social Criticisms

When most people, hear the words Howard Stern they will think of the radio shock jock that has been on the FCC's most wanted list for years. The reason why, is because his show will often involve him doing outrageous skits and it is utilizing content that is considered to be adult orientated. This has created tremendous amounts of animosity within the world of entertainment. As, many supporters of Stern will claim that his actions are protected by the First Amendment. However, there have been a host of different Supreme Court cases that are giving the government the power over how to regulate the airwaves.

What happened was the Supreme Court gave the FCC specific guidelines for determining, what is acceptable radio content through: the Federal Communications Commission vs. Pacifica Foundation decision. In this situation, a father and son filed a complaint about how a 1973 broadcast of the George Carlin show was considered to be obscene. After hearing the arguments, they ruled that the content was considered to be indecent but not obscene. However, the court also ruled that the government has the power to regulate the kind of content that is on airwaves under two conditions. To include: shielding children from offensive material and ensuring that unwarranted speech is not entering the home. The combination of these elements is important, because they established the basic foundation that was used by the FCC when regulating radio and television broadcasts.

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("FCC vs. Pacifica Foundation," 2011)

Then, in 1987 the FCC broadened its guidelines about what kinds of content will be monitored. This is because they began receiving complaints in 1981 about the Howard Stern Show and the topics he was discussing on the air. This led to an investigation and the expansion of these regulations based on the fact that they had limited powers. Over the course of time, this increased the amounts of animosity between Stern and the government. This is significant, because it is showing how the regulators were responding to the social criticisms that he was receiving. As a result, this has caused Stern to move to Sirius XM satellite radio in an effort to avoid the overall amounts of regulatory guidelines. To fully understand what is happening, requires looking at the different social criticisms in comparison with the show. This will be accomplished by conducting an annotated bibliography and examining the methods that were used during our research. Once this occurs, it will offer the greatest insights as to how these criticisms have resulted in: increased amounts of regulation and the way that Stern has adapted to them. This is the point that we can see how these issues are impacting his show and the format that he is embracing. (Mintzer, 2010, pp. 19 -- 32)

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"Howard Stern And Social Criticism", 24 October 2011, Accessed.5 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/howard-stern-social-criticism-46835